by Raquel Belle
“Oh god, James. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something difficult for you.”
James finished the last of his beer, placed it on the table, and put his hand on Hayley’s arm. “It’s okay. I actually really miss talking about him. Other than Dan, no one brings him up anymore. They’re all afraid that they’re going to upset me, but what I want more than anything is to talk about him. To remember him.”
Hayley smiled. “Then tell me about him.”
***
Hayley and James spent the next few hours sequestered off in their own little world. They did the Jägerbomb Kerry brought them when asked to, and engaged in a bit of terrible club grinding with the other teachers, but other than those brief instances, they spent most of the night by each other’s side, having the most in-depth, intimate conversation they’d had yet. It was almost exactly like Hayley had pictured it—them, off on their own in a dark corner, standing close as they got to know each other better.
James was sharing a funny anecdote about the time a guy tried to convince his dad to give him the orange soda bottle tattoo from Keenan and Kell when Hayley’s phone buzzed on the table next to her. Eric’s name appeared, followed by a text message that seemed to consist mostly of emoticon hearts and, incongruously, penguins.
“So, where’s Eric tonight?” James asked. It wasn’t unusual for teachers to bring their partners or spouses to nights out. Andrew’s wife had showed up a few hours ago, and Grace, the secretary, was outside talking to her boyfriend on the phone, giving him directions to the club.
“He’s at his parents’ house this weekend,” Hayley said. Eric had wanted her to come, but she’d begged off, saying that teachers’ nights out were few and far between. He’d been mostly understanding, though the words “is getting drunk with your friends really more important than meeting your future in-laws?” had left his mouth on his way out her door the previous night.
“And you’re not there?” James asked. Hayley was tempted to wave it off and change the subject, but she was four drinks in and James was looking at her with so much interest and honesty that she felt she had to come clean to him.
“We’re… not really there. He’s about a million miles ahead of me, telling me he loves me, asking me to move in. He made me a three-course meal the other weekend, and he wanted me to go meet his folks tomorrow, but I just can’t. I’m not even sure if I like him, let alone love him, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s cheating on me.”
James had been nodding his head with understanding, up until the point when Hayley mentioned cheating. At that, his eyes bugged out of his head. “Cheating? Why do you think he’s cheating on you?”
“He’s been too nice. It’s like he’s compensating for something. I just have a bad feeling about it. I’ve been cheated on before, so I know the signs.”
James put his drink down and took a step closer to Hayley. His hands came to her waist almost instinctively and he looked at her and said, “He’s an absolute idiot if he’s cheating on you. You’re so beautiful, kind, funny, smart, talented. Any guy that would throw that away is a fucking idiot who doesn’t deserve you.”
Hayley blushed, both from the proximity to James and from his compliments. “Oh, uh, thank you?”
James shook his head. “Don’t thank me. I’m just telling you the truth. If you were my girlfriend, I would worship the ground you walked on. I wouldn’t even look at another woman, not when I had you in my bed and in my arms every day and night.”
He was staring at her adoringly, and Hayley felt pulled to him, stepping closer until her breasts were brushing against his chest. The contact made her nipples tighten, and her mouth started to water as she imagined inching closer and kissing James. What would his lips feel like against hers? Would he taste like the beer he’d been drinking, or something else, something at once sweeter and more addictive? She was afraid to find out.
James answered all those questions when he reached up and caressed Hayley’s lips with his fingers, before replacing them with his lips. He was warm and inviting, tasting slightly of hops and slightly of something else, like molasses or chocolate. It was addictive, whatever it was. His hand reached up to cradle her head, running his fingers through her waves as his other hand pulled her tighter to him.
It was the most delicious, intoxicating kiss, and Hayley didn’t want it to end. But it was wrong. Like it or not, she was with someone, and she wasn’t a cheater, not even with someone as gorgeous as James. Reluctantly, she pushed him away. “I can’t do this,” she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. Why was she crying? Confusion? Drunkenness? Love? A combination of all three? Whatever the reasons, she needed to get out of there and fast.
Before James could respond, Hayley grabbed her clutch from the table and ran, shrugging on her coat as she pushed through the door into the cold, spring night. A cab stopped at the curb at the exact moment her hand raised to flag one, and she jumped in, eager to get home and sleep off her mistake. What the hell was she thinking, kissing James when she was worried her boyfriend was cheating on her? What did that say about her as a person? She’d become what she’d always hated: a hypocrite.
Chapter Eight
“305 West 50th, please,” Hayley told the cab driver as she sank into the soft, leathery seats. What the hell had she just done? Yes, she’d been thinking about kissing James for weeks, and yes, the kiss was so good it made her tingle from her toes to the top of her head, but that didn’t change the fact that she had just cheated on her boyfriend. She had cheated, after being cheated on countless times. What the hell was her life coming to?
The cab ride was blissfully short, and Hayley arrived at her apartment just after midnight. Her bathroom and bedroom faced the street, and she could’ve sworn she’d turned the lights off in both of those rooms prior to walking to Kerry’s, yet somehow, the lights were on, shining out into the dark street. Oh no—was she being burgled? It wouldn’t be the first burglary in her building, and suddenly, all of Hayley’s prized possessions ran through her mind, most of which were on display in her bedroom. The gold pearl earrings her mother had given her for her 21st birthday, the laptop she’d left on the bed from when she’d been listening to music as she’d packed for Kerry’s, her iPad on its docking station near her bed. All in clear view and easy to grab. Shit.
She jammed her key into the entry door and twisted, then, as soon as she was in the foyer, she ran up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. The door was ajar. That couldn’t be a good sign.
Hayley raced inside, and immediately heard the sound of voices coming from the bedroom. One voice was high-pitched and seemed to be yelling, while the other was low and making growling noises. Hayley’s heart was still beating quickly, but her fear of being robbed was gradually receding as she put a face to the familiar voice emanating from her room. Could that be… Eric?
Slipping off her heels, Hayley tiptoed to her bedroom and stood at the doorway. She couldn’t move once she saw what was going on in her bed. Because there, butt naked and on top of another woman, was Eric, his back arched as he thrust repeatedly and grunted.
“Eric! What the hell!” Hayley screamed. Eric looked behind him, and his blissful smile gradually turned to a look of horror.
“Hayley?” he asked, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe his eyes. He recovered quickly and said, “Hayl… I can explain,” before extricating himself from the woman beneath him and coming to stand in front of Hayley. He was naked, his cock erect and wrapped in a condom and pointing directly at Hayley. It was, to say the least, a bit disconcerting.
“You can explain to me why you’re in my bed in my apartment at midnight on the Friday you told me you would be at your parents? A visit to your parents you tried repeatedly to guilt me into coming to? Yeah, this is going to be good,” Hayley said, and proceeded to sit in the chair she kept by her wardrobe. “Please, I’m all ears.”
But before Eric could begin, the woman on the bed spoke up. “You have another girlf
riend? Seriously, Eric, how many times are you going to pull this shit?”
Eric looked behind him at the woman still lying on Hayley’s bed. She was tall, with light brown skin, long black hair curling softly around her, and a slim but curvy figure. She cast a dark glare at Eric and then rolled off the bed and began getting dressed, grabbing her clothes from the various spots around the room where they had been hastily thrown.
Hayley and Eric watched wordlessly as she finished zipping up her dress and adjusting her sling back heels, before she turned to face Hayley, ignoring Eric, and said, “I’m his ex. Well, sort of. We’re off again on again. He told me he’d broken up with you,” and here she leveled Eric with a biting glare, “but that’s obviously not the case. I’m sorry. Things are complicated between us. I had no idea this was your place.”
Hayley nodded, appreciating the woman’s honesty but still wildly confused as to how Eric had managed to keep her a secret for months. “Have you… have you been seeing each other the whole time we’ve been dating, Eric?” Hayley asked.
Eric looked like he would rather have been anywhere else in the world at that moment, and he avoided Hayley’s eyes, preferring to stare at the corner of ceiling above her head as he whispered, “No. I only called her tonight. She’s… she’s my ex.”
“Oh…kay. So why exactly are you in my apartment rather than at yours?” Hayley paused, her eyes lighting up with recognition. When she spoke, her voice was louder, more brash. “Was this some sort of sick revenge plot to get back at me for not going to your parents?”
But before Eric could answer, his on-again-off-again girlfriend did. “He told me this was an Airbnb he’d rented for us for the night. I thought it was a bit weird that there were still dishes in the sink and some clothes on the bed, but he told me he’d asked for early check-in so the owner hadn’t had time to finish cleaning.”
“Seriously, Eric? How much of an asshole are you? You brought your ex-girlfriend to my apartment to fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?”
At this, Eric finally lifted his head, looked Hayley square in the eye, and went off. “You said you’d be at Kerry’s all night! I figured we had the place to ourselves! And excuse me for wanting a little tender loving comfort after the way you’ve been acting the last few weeks. It’s like you’re in love with someone else!”
Hayley balked at this. “Well, it seems the same is true for you.”
Eric’s ex-girlfriend leveled him with a glare. “You know what, I’d like an explanation as well. Enlighten us both on what the fuck you were thinking when you invited me here.”
Sighing, Eric looked at Hayley and said, “Christina and I were together for seven years. When we broke up for what we both thought would be the last time, I got on Hinge shortly afterward. I didn’t want to be alone, and then I met you, and things seemed like they were going so well.”
Christina motioned with her hand for him to continue. “But then,” Eric said, “you didn’t want to move in, you didn’t tell me you loved me, and the past few weeks you’ve been so distant.”
Christina looked at Eric with pity in her eyes. “Oh Eric, you can’t steamroll your way through a new relationship to forget the old one.”
Eric whipped his head around. “Yeah, thanks Tina, I know that now. But it doesn’t change how much it hurt to once again be rejected by a woman I thought I was falling in love with.”
Hayley nodded her head, finally understanding why Eric had wanted to move things in their relationship along so quickly. She felt sorry for him—she knew what it was like to have trouble getting over a relationship. She’d spent months pining for some of her ex-boyfriends before finally realizing they were never coming back, but at least in her case, they’d never fallen back into bed together and made everything ten times more complicated.
“So… the trip to your parents? That was a trick, right?” Hayley asked.
Eric nodded. “It was a test. My last test to see if you really were falling in love with me. I figured, if you really did care about me, then you’d want to meet them, but when you decided to go off with your teacher friends instead, I knew things were over between us. I invited Tina over as a kind of revenge.”
Tina looked at Eric, incredulous, before bursting out, “You asshole!” at the exact same time that Hayley said it.
“I know, I know, okay? I get it, I have some major shit to figure out. And I’m sorry I dragged both of you into the middle of it.”
“I think it’s probably for the best if you leave, Eric. I can send any stuff of yours to your office, okay?”
Eric nodded and began gathering his clothes, quickly dressing before grabbing his phone and wallet off Hayley’s bedside table. Her spare set of keys, the ones she kept in the lockbox next to her door, were deposited in her hand on Eric’s way out.
Tina and Hayley took a deep sigh at the same time, then turned to each other and laughed. Hayley stood up and motioned for Tina to follow her into the living room. “So, that was dramatic. Want a nightcap?”
Tina looked at her with suspicion. “I just had almost-sex in your bed with the guy who, up until five minutes ago, was your current boyfriend. How do you not want t slap me and then kick me out right now?”
Hayley shrugged. “I’ve been there. Not quite there, I mean, but I’ve pined for guys long after we’ve broken up. And beneath the insecure exterior, Eric is a fundamentally nice-ish guy, so I can see why you’d fall back into bed with him. Plus, you seem nice. Want to drink some whiskey and eat Oreos on my couch?”
Tina smiled at Hayley and nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
***
Hayley and Tina spent the rest of the night chatting and powering through an entire packet of Oreos and half a bottle of Jack Daniels. Eventually, after a few hours of comparing bad boyfriend stories, Hayley told Tina about kissing James.
“I feel so ashamed. I’ve been cheated on more than once, and I always swore to myself that I wouldn’t be that person, yet here I am, being the cheater.”
“I don’t know that it’s quite as grave when you were probably being cheated on at almost the same moment. Doesn’t that kind of cancel it out?”
Hayley shook her head. “It’s more the principle of the thing. I just feel like I’ve failed myself. Like I’ve become the person in a relationship that I always ended up hating.”
Tina took a sip of her whiskey and pondered for a moment before responding. “The way I see it is, yeah, you kissed a guy when you maybe shouldn’t have, but was it worth it? Because that’s almost more important. Was the kiss worth the cheating?”
Hayley nodded without thinking. “Yes. Definitely yes. I’ve been thinking about kissing James for weeks.”
Tina sat up from where she had been slumped on the couch. “Wait, the guy you kissed was named James? And he’s a Kindergarten teacher like you?”
Hayley nodded.
“What’s his last name?”
“Sumners.”
Tina jumped up and down on the couch. “Oh my god, I know him! I’m best friends with his sister! And you’re Hayley!”
Hayley eyed her suspiciously. “Tina, are you drunk from all that whiskey? I told you my name like four hours ago.”
Tina shushed her. “No no no. You don’t understand. You’re Hayley. The girl he can’t stop talking about. He gushes to his sister Vicky about you non-stop. Keeps saying how smitten he is with you, how you’re the perfect girl, but you’re in a relationship and he doesn’t want to screw that up. Oh my god! This is perfect!”
“How exactly is this perfect?”
“Because! Because now you’re hot, single, and free! Free to date him! Free to fall in love with the guy who has, on numerous occasions, described you as his “ideal woman.” He calls you a goddess, Hayley. He thinks you’re the cream of the crop, the bees knees, the…”
“Okay, okay, enough with the idioms! I get it! But I just left him at a bar after telling him our kiss was a massive mistake. That’s not exactly an easy thing to com
e back from.”
Tina sat back down, took a sip from her whiskey, and bit into a cookie, looking pensive. “Okay, okay… So obviously what you need to do is tell him you were wrong. That nothing that felt that good could have been a mistake. When do you see him next?”
“We sometimes meet for coffee before school, but otherwise, I’ll see him Monday morning around 8:30 when we both get to the classroom.”
“And when do the kids come in?”
“Around 9:30.”
“Perfect! That’s plenty of time to set something up. Okay, here’s what we’re going to do…”
Chapter Nine
Monday morning came and Hayley felt sick to her stomach. She’d never made a romantic gesture like the one she was planning for that day. Flowers, homemade cake, twenty handmade “I’m sorry” cards, and art show tickets were involved, and she didn’t even want to think about the possibility that James would turn her down. She needed to focus on finding the perfect outfit that said, “sorry I ran away but really I do like you and think you’re the best man on the planet with the lips of an angel.” Which shouldn’t be too difficult, considering the size of her closet.
After half an hour of deliberating, she decided a black V-neck A-line dress with eggplant-colored tights and brown leather boots. She put her hair in a complicated bun she’d learned from a YouTube tutorial, stuck her favorite hoop earrings in her ears, and did a “natural” makeup look that required a swipe of mascara, a touch of powder and some light pink lip gloss.
Shrugging on her coat and carefully packing up all the I’m sorry-accouterment, Hayley left her apartment and began walking to school, hoping that James had gotten her text message to meet her at the classroom at nine. He hadn’t responded, hadn’t even read the text message, according to the read receipt, but Hayley was hoping he’d see it before he left his place.